Strickland announces $200 million plan to revive Memphis
Memphis will see a lot of moving dirt these next few years. The dirt will move at rebuilt parks, historic schools turned into libraries, and, maybe, razed skyscrapers.
During his state of the city speech Thursday evening, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland announced a $200 million spending plan intended to rehabilitate Memphis’ aged park system, change neighborhoods with mixedused plazas and new green-lines, give Mud Island a face-lift and potentially tear down Memphis’ tallest building, the dilapidated 100 N. Main.
“It’s strategic investments in neighborhoods that have not had much investment in the recent decades,” Strickland said in an interview with The Commercial Appeal Wednesday. “I also think it’s a visible sign to the community that we are going to aggressively try to recapture the momentum that we had.”
The spending program, which the city hopes will cause private funds to follow public dollars, is called “Accelerate Memphis: Invest in Neighborhoods.” The money will come from a one-time, $200 million balloon debt issuance that still needs state of Tennessee and Memphis City Council approval.
Strickland, and city chief operating officer Doug Mcgowen, see a need for revitalization of Memphis neighborhoods, roads and communal infrastructure. They see the coming decline in Memphis’ debt.
The amount of money the city spends on debt service — what a normal person would consider their mortgage, rent, car or credit card payments — is projected to decline from about $160 million annually to about $90 million in fiscal year 2027, which is mid-2026. That decline frees up money for the city to borrow now.
“We don’t believe that the citizens of the city of Memphis, who have been with us on this journey, need to wait five years before they take advantage of some of the opportunities that will come,” Mcgowen said in an interview this week.
A $10 million library replacing a piece of blight
Historic Melrose High School sits vacant. From the front, facing Dallas Street, it looks sturdy. But on the backside, which abuts the playground at the Orange Mound Community Center, the New Deal-built school shows its 82 years of age.
The brick is coming off in places. The school, which last saw students in 1979, is separated from the community center and Christ Community Health Clinic that shares a parking lot by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. It is a piece of blight next to two key pieces of communal infrastructure.
Soon, the building will be where people find knowledge again. The city plans to renovate the old building into a new $10 million library that will include some units of senior housing.
When it’s built, the new building will fill a hole in the city’s library system. Orange Mound does not have a branch, and libraries help serve as conduits for free Wifi and internet for those who don’t have broadband at home.
The closest library to the Orange Mound Community Center is either Central Library on Poplar Avenue near Chickasaw Gardens or the Cherokee Branch Library on Sharpe Avenue, which is three miles to the south.
Strickland said, “It serves the public because they don’t have a branch library and it helps save this beautiful, old building.”
A potential solution for 100 N. Main
The tallest building in Memphis, 100 N. Main, is vacant. It has been for some time now. For years, early in the Strickland administration, it was part of a planned project that would renovate the building and bring a convention center hotel to Memphis.
When Loews Hotels decided to back out a verbal agreement with the skyscraper’s owners, Townhouse Management, and build a 20-plus story hotel across the street on Civic Center Plaza, the relationship between the city, Townhouse and Loews descended into litigation, which is still ongoing.
However, while the current lawsuit has stymied discussions between the city and Townhouse on what to do with the 430-foot-tall piece of blight, the $200 million spending program has $10 million set aside for investment or, maybe, implosion.
“If and when that becomes available for us to make an investment, we would like to have some funds available to remediate it. And either raze the thing or put in some investments,” Mcgowen said.
In a changing part of city, a new community center
The neighborhoods that surround Gaisman Park —the 38122 zip code — have changed over the decades. Once primarily white-working class, the area became a landing pad for immigrants, particularly those from Mexico.
Macon Road and surrounding streets feature a multicultural array of groceries, restaurants and other small businesses. Macon itself, or at least stretches of it, is relatively recently paved — a sign of newness among the 1940s and 1950s era housing stock.
In the interview, Strickland spoke, as he often does, about street paving.
“One of the reasons, when I took office five years ago, that I put so much emphasis on paving, was, in addition to we really needed it, it was a visible sign to neighborhoods that we care about [them]; that we’re investing; that we recognize our taxpayers, and [that] they deserve a return on on their taxes,” Strickland said.
Along Macon, another component of the Strickland administration’s spending initiative will play out. The city’s comprehensive plan, known as Memphis 3.0, identifies “anchors” within Memphis neighborhoods — places that the area should build around. In the spending package, there are 34 intersections described as anchors. They will receive $400,000 each — $13.6 million total. The money is for paving, curbs, benches , new bus stops and public Wifi among other things.
Macon Road has three of those anchor intersections, including at Victor Drive. That intersection is the home of Stepherson’s grocery store and a bus stop is nearby.
It all could use a face-lift. The money, for Gaisman and Macon, for elsewhere, to Strickland and his administration, is sorely needed. The mayor has not increased taxes during his half-decade in office and the mild increases in tax revenue have gone to existing city departments and the city’s entitlements — its pension. And there’s the existing debt. Without borrowing from the future, there would not be a ton of room for new parks.
At Gaisman Park, there are two new futsal courts, paid for the Memphis Soccer Foundation. The two courts, used for playing a version of five-on-five soccer in an enclosed space, have pink and purple walls — the only splash of color across the worn 23 acres of the park.
In normal times, when a pandemic isn’t rendering contact sports a risk, the fields are home to one of the most robust soccer communities in Memphis. The new futsal courts, which have the only nets remaining at the park, had kids playing on them Wednesday afternoon.
The current Gaisman Community Center, a drab brick building, isn’t long for existence. As part of the $200 million spending package, it will be replaced with a $8 million community center and the hilly fields at the southend of the park, with their weathered wooden light poles, will be replaced with two new soccer fields with a $1.1 million price-tag.
Green-lines galore
The city will also use the money to start or finish greenway projects across Memphis.
● Chelsea Greenline ($1,075,000). The city plans to acquire and construct a 2.5-mile shared-use path in the unused Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way adjacent to Chelsea Avenue from Evergreen Street to Washington Park. Federal money will be used for about 80% of the project with the city making up the rest.
● Heights Line ($4 million). The city is planning construction of a new 1.75mile linear park and multi-use path in the Highland Heights community, located in the median of National Street between Summer Avenue and Bayliss Avenue. It would connect the Hampline and Wolf River Greenway.
● A westward expansion of Shelby Farms Greenline western extension ($1,065,000). The Greenline ends at Tillman Street. The city plans to construct a bridge over the CN Railroad so the Greenline can extend into Tobey Park and what is now known as Liberty Park (The Midsouth Fairgrounds).
● Wolf River Greenway ($2.5 Million)
Mud Island Ampitheater
The city is also setting aside $4 million to rehab the existing ampitheater on Mud Island with the goal to make it a live concert venue again.
“There’s a need for the escalators [and] elevators to work; for the entrances to be attractive for people to use and to bring the amphitheater back into use and making it a usable, bookable event venue, so we think $4 million will get us a long way towards that,” Mcgowen said.
Park projects
The city is earmarking $35 million for parks in the $200 million spending package. Beyond Gaisman, each of the city’s 120-plus developed parks will receive some work, according to Mcgowen and Strickland.
● Audubon Park ($425,000). Construct a new picnic pavilion on the north end of the park.
● Douglass Park ($1 million) for a splashpad, sports field improvements and paving.
● Renovation of Gaston Community Center for $4 million
● May Park improvements ($1.5 million — city plans on rebuilding two of the park’s soccer fields
h Pine Hill Golf Course ($4 million) — new clubhouse for the golf course that will also be available to the community
● Pine Hill Park ($600,000) — new picnic pavilion and playground
● Riverview Community Center ($2 million) renovations.
● Renovated aquatic facilities
$15 million for broadband and affordable housing
The city will also use $15 million — $7.5 million each — on affordable housing and expanding broadband internet access. The city’s division of housing and community development, run by Paul Young, will administer those funds. Where they will be spent has not yet been finalized.
Samuel Hardiman at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter at @samhardiman.